Currently school districts employ a variety of strategies to increase the accuracy of dropout data and prevent at-risk students from dropping out of schools.
The Fresno Unified School District has its school social workers, attendance staff, and community liaisons make phone calls and conduct home visits for students who were pre-enrolled but have not showed up within the first two or three weeks of the school year. The main goals of this program are to encourage students to re-enroll at their home school and to update drop codes to accurately document where “no show” students are attending school.
The Long Beach Unified School District also makes phone calls and home visits in order to improve the accuracy of dropout rates. The district begins the dropout recovery process by checking with the statewide CSIS database, local adult school databases, and city college enrollment files to see if the “no-show” students have chosen to continue their education in other institutions. Since not all schools report to the CSIS database, the district negotiated data sharing with local adult schools and city colleges through a memorandum of understanding. This is an important practice, because even with the implementation of CALPADS the student identification numbers that school districts assign to students still need to be linked to post-secondary educational institutions.
In order to help the large number of Spanish-speaking families in the district, bilingual staff are recruited to call families. Roughly 10% of “no-show” students are removed from the dropout list as a result of these phone calls. LBUSD also works with at-risk counselors in their Project TEAM (Teaching and Encouraging Academic Minds) group to visit students at their homes. These staff members are paid for with funds from the AB 1802 counseling grant initiative, and they make home visits to help reduce dropout rates. At-risk counselors discuss with students their reasons for dropping out and offer alternatives so they can complete their high school education.
In the Los Angeles Unified School District, multiple services and funding sources are leveraged to help address the needs of potential dropouts and their families. The Dropout Prevention and Recovery Program employs proactive and personalized approaches to reaching students. LAUSD employs 80 Diploma Project Advisors (DPA) and 300 Pupil Service and Attendance (PSA) Counselors at schools that have the most students at-risk for dropping out. These DPA and PSA counselors work directly with students and community agencies to develop and implement individualized educational blueprints to ensure that every student has the opportunity to earn a high school diploma. In addition to this effort to encourage students to stay in school, the district has also launched a multimedia “My Future, My Decision” campaign, which pairs recovered dropout students with current students to encourage them to take increased personal responsibility for their education.
The summer between school years is a period in which many students lose focus on their school objectives. LAUSD developed a strategy to keep students engaged during the summer and also during after-school hours. For example, the Youth Development Program launched in the summer of 2007, links high school students to employment opportunities that provide educational experiences.
The San Diego Unified School District has a number of district-wide and site-specific programs in place to reduce dropout rates and promote increased rates of graduation. The three-pronged approach provides multiple pathways for student success, improving student achievement and increasing graduation rates, and reducing dropouts by offering individual learning options and support to at-risk students.
The San Francisco Unified School District has formed a unique coalition of support professionals from education, health, and social services to target habitual and chronic truantsand develop a comprehensive attendance improvement plan. Knowing that high school students who have not attended school for an extended period often have trouble successfully reentering regular classes and finding immediate academic success, the district offers a transitional six-week study skills program for these students. During the reentry program, school staff conduct a full academic and community assessment that is used to help students make a more effective transition back to a regular comprehensive high school. This study skills elective class is tailored to each student, and parents are contacted about being partners in a long-term plan leading to graduation. Students earn five credits for completing the study skills class, which includes a reorientation to school life, homework assistance, and exposure to electronic media.
Table C summarizes the dropout intervention strategies that the PUER districts engage in during the school year. It is important to note that with the implementation of a more accurate data system to track students at the state level, districts will have the kind of detailed information they need to help keep young people in school.
